1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer-aided product designing assistant device and a product designing assistant method for assisting designing of an industrial product and its life cycle, such that the environmental load which is put on the environment due to the product through the entire product life cycle including acquisition of materials of the product manufacturing of the product, usage of the manufactured product and disposal of the product that has been used up, is reduced to a level lower than those of conventional products.
2. Related Art
With the developments of industry and economy, a fear has come to arise that the earth will get warmed-up due to the green house effect which results from an increasing amount of discharged gases. On the other hand, there also have arisen various problems such as the destruction of nature resulting from throwing-away of a huge amount of disuse rubbish and trashes, the environmental pollution resulting from harmful materials and substances contained therein, etc. From these points of view, the mitigation of the environmental load on the earth has been becoming an important task in the field of industry.
In a case where considering the environmental load in relation to the industry of manufacture, it is insufficient to set a sight on a range that merely covers the acquisition of materials of a product, the manufacturing thereof and the forwarding of the manufactured product. In such a case, it is also necessary to take the environmental load given during the process including the disposal stage and the recycling stage into consideration. In addition, in the case of a product which is followed by the consumption of energy when put to practical use, such as home electric appliances, automobiles and the like, it is necessary that consideration is given also to the consumption of energy during the process in which a product that has been handed to a user is utilized.
On this account, a designing assistant technique that a stress is placed upon the process of life cycle becomes more and more important from now onward, so as to certainly reduce the environmental load due to the designed and manufactured product in the entire product life cycle covering from the acquisition of materials to the disposal phases to a level lower than in the case of a conventional product.
Meanwhile, considering the conventional designing assistant technique, there are the following inconveniences (1) to (3) for designing ECP (Environmental Conscious Products) and planning a life cycle process thereof.
(1) The conventional designing assistant technique inconveniently permits a person who performs designing to enter upon his designing of a concrete structure according solely to his personal way of thinking, while the designing issues and the concept associated with the environmental factors that are the most important for each product to be designed are left unclear. Therefore, it is unavoidable in such designing to possibly reach his design solution that is not very effective, from the synthetic and overall point of view; for the reduction of the environmental load.
The reason for this is because, although it is naturally preferred to find a satisfactory solution to each of the designing issues concerning the environment (the energy saving, the recycle capability enhancement, etc.), such a designing solution that can give an optimum value to all the designing issues associated with the environment does not commonly exist. Accordingly, in actual product designing, it is necessary to provide a designing concept such that, from the synthetic point of view, a sight is concentratedly focused on the most important issues for the product to be designed so as to effectively design an environmentally conscious product.
(2) Since the concept regarding the environment is not clear, the efficiency of designing is sometimes decreased by using an environmental evaluation apparatus that will not be useful in truth with regard to the aimed product, or by spending a large amount of time in evaluation whose results only has low importance, etc.
(3) Also when determining a design solution among a plurality of design candidates produced by trial designing, it is still unclear which designing issue associated with the environment is important to what extent. Therefore, it sometimes happens to inconveniently select such a design that is not very effective for the decrease in the environmental load as a design solution.
Accordingly, it has been highly expected to develop a sure and highly reliable designing assistant technique for enabling the development of a product of new design so as to certainly reduce the environmental load of the designed product through the entire product life cycle covering from the acquisition of materials thereof to the disposal of the used-up product to a lower level than in the case of a conventional product.
An object of the present invention is to provide a computer-aided product designing assistant device and a product designing assistant method for assisting real designing of ECPs (Environmentally Conscious Products) accompanied with creation or establishment of a designing concept in relation to the product life cycle thereof, in which the environmental load put on the environment due to the designed product through its entire product life cycle covering from the acquisition of materials thereof to the disposal thereof is reduced to a lower level than those of the conventional products.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is accomplished by providing a computer-aided product designing assistant apparatus for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmentally conscious product, the apparatus comprising: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is accomplished by providing a computer-aided product designing system for designing an environmentally conscious product, comprising: an assistant apparatus for assisting designing of the environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental counscious product, the assistant apparatus having: a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; and a processing unit for determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is accomplished by providing a product designing assistant method for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmental counscious product, the method comprising the steps of: preparing a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product; determining a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed; selecting at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed; and presenting said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is accomplished by providing a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein for causing a computer to function as a product designing assistant apparatus for assisting designing of an environmentally conscious product by presenting at least one design guideline to be adopted in designing the environmentally counscious product, with a database storing a plurality of design guidelines for each product and evaluation values assigned to each design guideline in relation to a plurality of environmental issues and a plurality of phases defining a life cycle of products, the evaluation values assigned to each design guideline being capable of indicating an effectiveness of each design guideline in resolving each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle, each environmental issue respectively representing an issue to be resolved in order to reduce environmental load due to each product, the computer readable program code means includes: first computer readable program code means for causing said computer to determine a relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle for a product to be designed, second computer readable program code means for causing said computer to select at least one design guideline for the product to be designed from said plurality of design guidelines stored in the database according to the evaluation values stored in the database and the relative importance level of each environmental issue at each phase of the life cycle determined for the product to be designed, and third computer readable program code means for causing said computer to present said at least one design guideline selected for the product to be designed.